'Say we've no room,' called my father,
As I answered the knock at the door.
We'd be turning people away all day long,
I had seen nothing like it before.
'My wife is with child,' said the traveller,
'The baby will come very soon.'
I swung up the lantern to see the girl's face
And I just couldn't tell them, 'No room.'
On a donkey she sat, pale and weary,
My father came over and saw.
'I've a cave at the back where my oxen sleep,
Your wife could lie there on the straw.'
They gladly accepted the offer,
I ran ahead to sweep out the stall.
My father told servants to put out clean hay,
I hung my lantern up on the wall.
Late in the night something woke me,
Sweet singing from up on the hill.
I crept from my bed and slipped out to the street,
The world seemed so peaceful and still.
I wandered around to the stable,
In the sky shone a great star of gold.
The mans cloak was draped over the doorway
To keep out the wind and the cold.
In the rafters the stock doves were cooing,
Oxen's breath steamed in the lantern light.
The young mother was crooning a lullaby
To her baby boy, born in the night.
Then I heard her softly whisper,
'This may seem like a lowly birth,
Yet I'm holding the Son of God in my arms,
The King of Heaven has come down to Earth.'
- Clare McAfee -